The Stupidity of Gruberism and Executive Amnesty

In an ironic twist, the long-awaited sequel to the cult-classic “Dumb and Dumber” opened as Americans discovered that in the eyes of our Political Class, we’re like the film’s low-IQ duo – “stupid voters.”

Caught dropping truth bombs in a series of videos, MIT professor and Obamacare co-architect Jonathan Gruber describes how policymakers hid the Affordable Care Act’s true nature. “Call it the stupidity of the American voter,” Gruber chortled, since “that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass.”

But who’s the dunce considering Gruber is now persona non grata in capitals where he’s earned millions of taxpayer dollarsfor his wizardry?

Without a vote to spare, there wasn’t time to Think Again about Obamacare’s numerous taxes, employment disincentives and cross-subsidies from healthy to sick (including those with unhealthy behaviors) and young to old.

"We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what's in it," Nancy Pelosi insisted, demonstrating how raw political ambition trumped the consent of the governed in passing modern history’s most consequential law.

“Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” Gruber explained, which is why the 2,409-page “bill was written in a tortured way” to game the arcane Congressional Budget Office’s system for measuring legislation impacts. “If CBO scored the [insurance] mandate as taxes, the bill dies,” Gruber admitted.

Armed with CBO’s contorted conclusions, politicians and their media minions wielded them like weapons, including at the Supreme Court, which upheld Obamacare’s constitutionality by deeming the mandate a tax.

To achieve other politically treacherous measures, like limiting tax deductions on employer-provided health benefits, Gruberites designed the “Cadillac Tax” on expensive plans. “Mislabeling it, calling it a tax on insurance plans rather than a tax on people,” was possible, Gruber contends, because “the American people are too stupid to understand the difference.”

In revealing Obamacare’s deceptions, “Grubergate” upsets Thomas Jefferson’s self-government truism -- “whenever the people are well-informed they can be trusted with their own government.” By conspiring to misinform and manipulate, Gruberites have engendered distrust of the institutions they’re empowered to run.

More interested in advancing partisan agendas than assuring government’s legitimacy and durability, Gruberites endanger the constitutional stability that’s enabled America to become the freest and most productive society on earth, deviating from history’s norm – tyranny, instability and stifled human potential.

Unfortunately, by circumventing the debate and consensus on which pluralistic democracies depend, Gruberites prove Jefferson’s observation that “even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”

As America’s constitutional framers understood, process matters to orderly self-government. To constrain Gruberites, the founders designed a liberty-preserving system founded on popular consent, limited government, and equality under the law. To check abuse, they separated political powers among co-equal branches, pitting “ambition against ambition.”

That’s why President Nixon was wrong to tell interviewer David Frost, “When the President does it, that means it isn’t illegal.” Similarly, President Obama is wrong to claim authority for sweeping legal changes – like amnesty-by-fiat for 5 million illegals -- if Congress doesn’t pass laws he likes. Presidents are entitled to discretion in executing, not vacating, the law.

According to Jonathan Turley, constitutional scholar and Obama policy-supporter, the President’s unprecedented separation-of-powers violations render him “the very danger the Constitution was designed to avoid -- the concentration of power in any single branch.” If Presidents can enact consequential changes in defiance of Congress, the law and public will, what can’t they do?

Unilaterally legalizing millions of low-wage workers – a magnet for millions more -- to compete with America’s economically distressed working class mirrors the imperial and unfair rule we overthrew in 1776. Absent rapid job growth, it’s also a recipe for poverty and dependency, straining the society to which immigrants are drawn. Americans aren’t stupid or heartless to insist on the right to control whom we admit and in what numbers, no matter what Gruberites say.

Saturday Night Live mocked Obama’s King George-like views and his “go big or go home” immigration overhaul in its Schoolhouse Rock parody: “How a Bill Becomes Law.” First it passes Congress; then the President signs it. Even lame-duck Presidents must operate within constitutional bounds, using the bully pulpit and the legislative process -- not imperial edicts -- to advance policy goals.

Think Again – Ambitious Gruberites are an enduring threat to government of, by and for the people. Wouldn’t it be dumb not to deploy all available checks and balances to curtail them?

Melanie sums it up perfectly when she adds, "Presidents are entitled to discretion in executing, not vacating, the law." It's critically necessary that Obama supporters start separating personality from policy and see this President's actions objectively. The future of our Republic depends on it. Great piece.

My union, UAW Local 2350, has been talking a lot about "100% employer-paid health care" and how important it is. Jonathan Gruber, one of the primary architects of Obamacare, calls it "one of the worst public policies in America" - and under his plan, it will disappear by 2018. What will unions do when the full effect of the "Cadillac tax" hits home? Gruber says, "at that point if they want to get rid of it they're going to have to fill a trillion dollar hole in the deficit...It's on the books now."

Gruber has admitted numerous times that the Obama Administration HAD TO LIE to get the law to pass. Who were they lying to?

On December 24, 2009, the bill passed the Senate, 60-39, with all Democrats and two independents voting for it, and all Republicans against.

The Labor Movement supported the passage of Obamacare. That support waned when the Cadillac tax became common knowledge. Now we know that the Cadillac tax was intended from the beginning to eliminate 100% employer-paid health care. Obama just couldn't tell you that.

This is what Social Justice really is, folks. LYING TO YOUR OWN SUPPORTERS TO GET SOMETHING DONE, KNOWING THAT THEY WOULD OPPOSE YOU IF YOU TOLD THE TRUTH.

Dr. Tim Ball, a Canadian professor of meteorology, recently alluded on Anthony Watts climate site to the most memorable observation by Lord Acton (Sir J.E.E. Dalberg, First Baron Acton, 1834-1902) that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Ball set it in the context of Dalberg's letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, where it appeared originally. The whole passage to Creighton bears repeating, I think.
"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which . . . the end learns to justify the means."
Elsewhere Acton said,
"And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that."
Few outside this column's writer appear concerned about the danger.

Your good and thoughtful article should also apply to the old Republican congress that appears to be bumbling along with their secret meetings and plans to circumvent any action to stop this lawless president; there shall be no shut down, no power of the purse, no words in bills that might interfere with the immigration fiat. Will they be better when the new congress comes in; I highly doubt that they will as the litany of excuses will then apply to the 2016 presidential election. By then the disgust against Republicans could be as bad as it is for the Democrats now. Of course, it could make for a conservative president rising.

Additionally, Republicans are going along with cuts in military raises. I heard an interesting comment yesterday that might very well be true. The government is spending so much money to fuel our military planes, ships, etc with outrageously priced 'green fuel' that if replaced with traditional fuels for just a few days, the military raises could be allowed to rise accordingly. It hasn't taken long for the Republicans to go back on their campaign promises. I will gladly eat my words if I turn out to be wrong.